News and Updates

War Updates: Base Voting and Lethality

February 23rd, 2012 by Lyle Maeterlinck

Today we made some long-awaited updates to the Bloodlines War website: allowing everyone the ability to vote on dominion bases, and a new Lethality stat.

First, we’ll talk about the lethality update. Lethality is still calculated in the same way, that is, kills, one-hit kills, and body count still increase it, and deaths decrease it, but now there is more than one lethality being calculated: all-time lethality, and recent lethality. The rankings on the home page will reflect recent lethality, but all-time lethality will still be listed on the stats page.

Next, Dominion base voting. When you log into the website, you will see a new form on Dominion profiles that lets you “upvote” or “downvote” any particular Dominion base, by +1 or -1. Each person can vote on each base only once, and you can leave a note on the profile. The note is only visible to you (and to us), and is just a spot where you can write a note about why you voted it up or down, in case you want it for later reference. You can change your vote at any time, or you can change your vote to 0 if you want to effectively remove it. The rating of a base determines whether it is visible on the strongholds list. All bases will still be on the strongholds list, regardless of what their rating is, but bases with a rating below a certain viewing threshold relative to other rated bases will be hidden on the list. You can view hidden bases by clicking on them in the list. There are also links at the top of the list that will let you collapse or expand all rows.

There are a lot of “tricks” that people have used in order to make their bases difficult to take, and whether a given base is fair is a subjective matter. We want to continue to allow people to make creative and interesting bases without too much restriction. However, we want to make sure that bases are not made to be effectively impossible, or unfairly difficult. Now, the community of war players can downvote bases that they believe to be unfair, and upvote bases that they believe to be fair, fun, or interesting. So, if you’re running a war base that you want to make into a stronghold, it’s best to make sure that it is fair and that you treat people fairly who show up to play at your base.

As a reminder, all bases in the public stats must be publicly accessible. This means that a brand-new noob who has nothing except the Bloodlines War HUD must be able to reach your pylons without any special attachments or viewers. If you have a flight ejector, all pylons must be in range of the standard Second Life jump on the official viewer, even if you are giving out the attachment for free at your base. You’re free to give out whatever attachment you want, but you cannot set up your pylons so they are inaccessible without it. Generally, if Lyle Maeterlinck shows up to your base and can’t figure out how to get to your pylons within a reasonable amount of time, your base will be marked as a private base until it has been made accessible. If you have a hidden teleporter, there should be a big, obvious sign that says there is a hidden teleporter, and give a clue for how to find it.

Feel free to comment on this post with any thoughts you have about this update.

Just so it’s clear: in order to log in on the war website, you must set up your account using your War HUD. Click on settings > account > register on your HUD to set up your web account. The account for the war website is different from your account to log into the blog to comment.

I was just curious, on the base voting, if the IP’s are being monitored to make sure people aren’t voting up bases or down bases on alts, as I have noticed a few that seem very suspicious in that area.

ok i have a question u state that there must be a big obvious sign if u have a tp as such how many ppl do u really think are gonna do that an give a decent hint on how to find it i mean really who is gonna gfive up there spot on the stronghold list by giving a hint ok heres your hint its in the base go find it is that good enough hint because thats about all that should be needed to be said really please correct me if i am wrong but i think that in all fairness that exactly wat should be said an as for this voting well we all no its gonna be a popularity contest those who are popular will get voted up those who arent will be voted down like we have all seen happening already anyway if u can specify about the sign thing would be good thanks.

I agree with Snoop86, the tendency is clear, invaders come and break rules, and run there mouths, and vote bases low. So, we must kiss our invaders asses now, holding there hands to the pylons to get good votes. It would be a lie if anybody say they do not wish a big army, and it would be a lie, if I say I do not take pleasure in rape raids myself, feels satisfaction from all the times I been raped myself. Is a circle, the victims of rape raids are many. And it is here the problem starts. It is here many loose the passion for the game, it is here, all the drama starts, it is here, ideas like my fortress springs from. I still think it is wrong to give bad votes on armies that defend there bases with many numbers against few, with there hard efforts in reaching there numbers at eye. I see good bases getting low ratings, I see personal votes against persons, the system is not working. This is my opininion: revoke the rating system.

I like the: Recent lethal, it is making ppl play more, witch is overall good.

Base-Voting is a source of stupid personal animosities. Just as Per said.
Recent lethality should consider number of kills of same Avatar, exactely as in XP. Killed Avatar that dont give no more XP should not give Recent Lethality Point. That would avoid some bad Cheaters to play their stupid game, making honest players get out of The WAR.